Love Cruikshank, Love Notes

Ah! These were the hard days of those early springs of my childhood. Every fall school started on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Every spring school closed for summer vacation on the last Friday before Memorial Day.

The days of desperation were the days that fell between Easter and the last day of school. In Nebraska it was by then summer, a lovely, fluffy, flower-bedecked summer.

Could you enjoy it, though? Could you live the wonderful adventure of those summer weeks? Not yet. It was still school time. You couldn’t join your friends in those wonderful (right up to the curfew bell) games of run-sheep-run, dare base, ghosts, of course not. Next day was another school day. You had to have done your homework. You had to have been snugged away in bed as early as ever so you could be all bright-eyed and alert the next day.

It was horrible. You felt that good days were being chopped off your vacation before you’d even begun to enjoy it. It seemed to you that Memorial Day would never come, never, never, never.

It’s strange how a little kindly adventure can suddenly raise your faith in life and linger down through heavy years, a happy memory.

Three of my friends and I had stopped at the house of one of the four. We were not happy campers. The school year was going on far too long. We were waiting for the summer adventures. Swimming at the sandpit across the river. Our vacation at the Campfire Girls Camp. It seemed as if none of this beautiful stuff would ever happen if it didn’t happen pretty soon.

And then suddenly one of the girls put forth a question. It didn’t sound like a real question, just one of those questions that’s sort of a let’s pretend question.

If you could have any kind of an ice-cream Sundae you wanted what kind would you have? It was a big important question. We considered it thoughtfully. We took for granted that this was all theoretical. We were discussing that sundae of our dreams. No hint of reality.

Only one of them besides me is still on this plane of existence. But we were young then and saw no reason why we shouldn’t live forever.

I don’t remember what their favorite sundaes were. That day, as I said was a long time ago. My favorite sundae then is pretty much my favorite Sundae now, vanilla ice-cream topped with marshmallow and pineapple and chopped nuts.

Then it happened the friend who had put the question said, &8220;All right we’re going down to the store and have, each one of us, her favorite sundae.&8221;

We were aghast. Every topping added another 10 cents to the bill and this was during the depression. &8220;My father owns the joint,&8221; she said, speaking of the drugstore for which we were headed.

We knew that. We, also, knew that her parents wouldn’t let their kids read the funny papers on Sunday. I don’t know how my other friends felt, but I was praying we wouldn’t all get kicked out of the store in disgrace.

We weren’t. The sundaes were every bit as good as we imagined they would be.

I think I learned something that day. Never wish time away. Nothing is ever as magnificent as the now.

(Albert Lea resident Love Cruikshank’s column appears every Thursday.)